Thursday, September 16, 2010

Among the numerous comments made before a hearing of British lawmakers, BP (NYSE:BP) outgoing CEO Tony Hayward said the company should have been more aggressive in managing contractors like Transocean (NYSE:RIG), Halliburton (NYSE:HAL), and Weatherford (NYSE:WFT).

According to FT, Hayward said, “What we have is a lack of rigour and a lack of oversight of contractors. The contractors here were world class and you might have thought they wouldn’t have needed that level of oversight, but it was clearly something that was found wanting.”

With few significant incidents in deepwater drilling over the last 20 years, Hayward added it left the industry unprepared to respond to a major accident like the one they experienced with the Deepwater Horizon, which had the added challenge at being at a depth of about 5,000 feet.

When asked about reported violations in the North Sea from the Financial Times, Hayward said the news outlet offered no revelation of any fundamental problems related to their operations there.